Mr. Phelps introduced Stephanie Small, the new Director of Community Services.

Ms. Small said the item was to provide Council with information on the 2017-18 HUD funding recommendations.

Ms. Eirich-Palmisano said the Community Development Advisory Committee (CDAC) conducted a thorough review to formulate Council priorities and provide the most benefit to citizens for the grants the City received annually. The City had received over $2.9 million in grant funding from HUD for FY17-18 that could be used for public services, housing, physical improvement projects and to benefit low to moderate income citizens.

Ms. Eirich-Palmisano discussed the priorities used, which included keeping people in their homes, assisting with core needs, supporting home delivery of meals, providing emergency home repair, housing rehabilitation, clearing of blighted structures, emphasizing redevelopment in Centerline, workforce development and job opportunities. The CDAC had received over 38 applications for funding and after careful consideration of each application, had arrived at funding decisions. The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds received were spent on public service programs, physical improvement projects, HOME and ESG funds.

Councilmember Clark asked if there was another source of funding for neighborhood preservation and code compliance in the City's budget and why there was no recommendation for that type of funding.

Ms. Eirich-Palmisano said the CDAC felt the funds should be used in the lower income areas and did not see the logic in using limited resources to supplement an activity that was funded by the general fund.

Councilmember Clark asked where neighborhood preservation and code compliance was accounted for in the general fund and what was the amount.

Mr. Duensing could not answer that specific question, but would check with the Development Services staff and provide the information to Council.

Councilmember Clark was concerned that neighborhood preservation and code compliance funds were used for things such as boarding up houses and to clean and lien a property. Council needed to figure out how to fund those activities.

Councilmember Clark asked what would the approximately $200,000 in Community Revitalization funds that had been set aside be used for.

Ms. Eirich-Palmisano said the funds were used for the single-family rehabilitation program and the programs were operated internally by direct delivery staff. She said both CDBG and HOME funds were used for the programs.

Councilmember Clark asked what the funds were used for specifically.

Ms. Eirich-Palmisano said the funds were used to pay for single-family rehab programs for low income homeowners, for air conditioner replacement, roof repair and electrical upgrades.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if the CDBG had the authority to designate the general fund as a funding source when there was another funding source.

Ms. Eirich-Palmisano said no. The CDAC could only make recommendations on the funds received through HUD and the applications received. The CDAC could choose not to fund based on merit or lack of merit.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if the CDAC had the authority to decide not to use the funding mechanism for a program and instead, fund it through the general fund.

Ms. Small said some of the funding was used previously for code enforcement inspectors to help offset some of the budget issues that the City was experiencing at the time. She said the understanding was that the funds would be pulled out of the CDBG funding, but eventually the City would find the additional funding. The general fund was being used for the other neighborhoods within the City and the funds had been coming out of the CDBG for quite some time. It was the CDAC's recommendation that the funds now be used specifically for low income neighborhoods and all code enforcement now be funded through the general fund.

Mr. Phelps said during budget discussions, staff knew there would be no CDBG funding for code compliance for FY17-18. He said positions were moved and funded out of the general fund. He believed the CDAC felt the City could fund the code compliance program and CDAC would use the funds available to them for more targeted programs.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked when would staff be certain of the funding amount for the programs.

Ms. Eirich-Palmisano said staff had received confirmation at the end of June.

2.

OVERVIEW OF PLAN FOR DEVELOPMENT OF NEW CITY WEBSITE & INTRANET SITE
Presented By: Brent Stoddard, Director, Public Affairs
Marc Meyer, Digital Content Manager, Public Affairs

Ms. Bower read the item by title.

Mr. Stoddard explained the City's website was in desperate need of replacement. The website should be the most effective communication tool for residents, businesses, visitors and other stakeholders. Accurate and timely information should be provided on the City website and transparent, strategic and effective communication was a Council priority.

Mr. Stoddard said the current website was not an effective communication tool. Citizens should have the ability to engage in government through a website. The civic engagement portion was non-existent in the current website. It was visually outdated and the navigation was confusing and illogical. He said the search function was not up-to-date and was confusing. The two most important aspects of the update were the software and the ability to provide the back-end support and framework for the new website.

Mr. Meyer said the website redesign was only a small portion of the project. The current software would reach its end-of-life in two years and it was very outdated. There were only a couple of licensed users of the software, which created a problem when those staff members were out of the office. Mr. Meyer said the website had become a content dumping ground and the search feature would often pull up documents that were not relevant to the search.

Mr. Stoddard said there would be significant benefit to working with a vendor to build a user-friendly website. He said small-group workshops were held with every department and division in the City and dissimilar departments were paired together to facilitate discussion and comment. Departments were also asked about the features they would like to see on the website and other private and public sector websites were researched to learn about the different options available. Several common themes were apparent, including less clutter, more videos and photos and a mobile-friendly website.

Mr. Stoddard said other common themes included public calendars, ability to translate into other languages, social media feeds that updated in real time, easier navigation and the ability to update the website frequently and quickly by accessing the site from the cloud. Another component of the project was the internal intranet in order to communicate effectively with employees.

Mr. Meyer said the intranet had many of the same issues as the City's public website. Ideally, the internet and intranet would share the same platform, which would be beneficial for employees who needed to update both the public and internal pages.

Mr. Stoddard said putting the platform in the cloud would protect and provide security for the information on the website. The next step for the project was to issue an RFP. A contract would be brought back before Council once it had been awarded. Mr. Stoddard said once the contract was signed, it would take about 10 to 12 months before the system was up and running.

Councilmember Aldama asked for more information about how various languages would be integrated into the new website.

Mr. Stoddard said the companies that built and hosted websites, already had the capability to provide effective translation of the website.

Mr. Meyer said there was a general Google translation site on most websites, but many vendors that worked with municipal sites would be able to identify certain languages that were prevalent in the community to make sure those were accurately translated.

Councilmember Aldama asked if the RFP would provide for bilingual content.

Mr. Stoddard said it would.

Councilmember Aldama asked if the process for paying a water bill would change on the new website.

Mr. Stoddard said the process would not change. The new website would incorporate the internal or third party processes.

Councilmember Aldama said one of his first Council items of special interest was to update the website and he was very happy the project was moving forward.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if the Follow Your Money program would continue to be available.

Mr. Stoddard said it would and there would be a multitude of ways for citizens to get real time information about City activities. He said the sky was the limit with the open data project.

Councilmember Clark asked how much funding was in the budget that had been carried over.

Mr. Stoddard said there was approximately $100,000.

Councilmember Clark asked if it would be clear in the RFP that the maximum budget was $100,000.

Mr. Stoddard said the RFP would have a capped amount and many prospective vendors were waiting for the project. He said the vendors knew what was budgeted as well as what the City was looking for. The project would stay within the budget the Council had adopted.

Councilmember Clark asked what the annual support costs would be for the website. She also asked what other cities were paying for annual support costs.

Mr. Stoddard wanted it to be a competitive process and would share the information with Councilmember Clark outside of the Council meeting. He wanted the vendors to provide competitive pricing.

Councilmember Clark asked if there would be any increase in productivity as a result of the new website.

Mr. Stoddard said there absolutely would be from a capacity standpoint but did not know if there would be specific savings in software or server costs at this time. Significant costs savings had not been identified but it would allow the City to use the website as a communication tool.

Mr. Meyer said productivity would increase in terms of speed and information that could be updated in real time by anyone no matter where they were at the time. The speed of updated communication would improve tremendously.

Councilmember Clark asked if the new system would allow a citizen to actually retrieve or find information.

Mr. Meyer said part of the project was migrating the data and if it was accurate data, the search function would work correctly.

Councilmember Clark said if certain data sets were not put into the system, they would never be found.

Mr. Stoddard said that was why staff looked at the data that already existed on the site. He said some basic search functions that did not currently exist would enhance and refine the results.

Mr. Meyers said most vendors were offering kill dates, which would move documents off the site and help reduce future clutter.

Councilmember Clark asked if there was a way to make certain that data could be located that was relevant to the search terms.

Mr. Stoddard said yes, that would be part of the responsibility for department liaisons who would see the project through.

Mr. Phelps said there might be additional information once staff found out how individuals wanted to use the system. Staff would reach out to citizens, stakeholders and the business community to find out what types of functionality and features were desirable. Those features would be incorporated into the design of the new website. The goal was to get rid of useless information and add more relevant information.

Councilmember Turner hadn't received many complaints about the City website from constituents, but said it was possible to make it work better. It would be nice to make it mobile-friendly, adding a calendar and having multiple language options. He said some departments hadn't added anything to their webpages in a long time and it might have to be determined how to deal with those issues internally. He was interested in getting a list of other cities' websites that were reviewed so the Council could visit them. He wanted to make sure the project provided a better experience for users and maintained some of the logic that existed in the current website.

Councilmember Aldama asked if there would be an archive page so anyone could find older information.

Mr. Stoddard said documents were retained based on retention schedules and determining what to keep would be part of the process in implementing a new website. The documents would be organized and accessible to the public.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if the new website would be cloud-based.

Mr. Stoddard said that was the benefit of the cloud platform, because vendors had to keep software updated for all their clients.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if IT was going to be part of the project.

Mr. Stoddard said IT and many other departments had been involved in the website update project.

Mr. Meyer maintained close ties with the IT Department and has had discussions with IT staff regarding the project.

Mr. Phelps said all departments in the City were engaged in the project and IT would play a major role by assisting with implementation of the project. He said as new organizations built websites and requested additional functionality, that functionality was added to the platform and distributed to all the other users. Choosing the right vendor would help the City to not fall behind in website technology.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if technical support would be outsourced.

Mr. Phelps said technical support would still be a function of the IT Department.

Ms. Rios said the utility was a large collection of infrastructure and equipment for the delivery of water, cleaning and removal of wastewater and removal of residential solid waste. The CIP was an investment into that infrastructure. The original cost of the water and sewer asset was approximately $700 million. Replacement costs for the asset was approximately $2 billion at today's costs.

Ms. Rios said regular maintenance was required to assure residents had a safe and reliable system. The solid waste assets consisted mainly of trucks and that type of equipment. There was a need to invest in assets in order to have reliable removal of solid waste. The CIP was meant to address rehabilitation, repair and replacement of the facilities and assets.

Ms. Rios said there was a combination of cash, development fees and bond funding to fund the CIP. The utilities were enterprise funds and were meant to be self-supporting. The user fees were designed to cover the cost of the services provided. The funds were not subsidized by tax dollars and each enterprise fund had a significant capital investment. She said rate studies had been done because the last water and wastewater rate increase was in 2010 and the last solid waste rate increase was in 2008.

Ms. Rios provided a capital plan overview. On the water and wastewater side, facilities included reclamation plants and water plants, water mains, transmission lines and wastewater collection lines, as well as the cost to buy water and wells. She said about $54 million was available that could come from current fund balance. It was a 6-year plan and 2017 was included because there was carryover of projects from 2017 into 2018. It did not include the cost of the Pyramid Peak Water Treatment Plant expansion because that was being paid for by the City of Peoria. Ms. Rios explained a portion of the projects would be funded with future bonds and the proposed rate increases would pay for the remaining balance.

Mr. Johnson said the Water Services major items were water and wastewater treatment facilities, distribution lines, sewer pipes, as well as over 400,000 other assets in the system. He said CIP projects were identified and discussed through the budget process and information was provided to the public for feedback.

Mr. Johnson said the Arrowhead Water Reclamation Facility was built in 1985. The facility was an end-of-line plant and could not be shut down, so it was important to keep up with maintenance. He said wastewater was very corrosive and several items at that facility required replacement.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if there was a redundancy plan in case of failure at that plant.

Mr. Johnson said a redundancy plan had not been created because the flow of water could not be sent anywhere from that plant.

Mr. Phelps said the plant had outdated equipment that needed to be replaced. Mr. Johnson would be talking about redundancy projects later in his presentation.

Councilmember Aldama said the Council would like to know if any of the projects discussed in the presentation were redundant projects.

Mr. Johnson said the asset management program was obsolete, unsupported and did not meet the needs of the department. The program assured proper maintenance was being done and provided analytics for the maintenance schedule. The program would provide a proactive approach to the asset maintenance and would ensure the useful life of the assets were preserved.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if it was part of an overall City asset management program.

Mr. Johnson said Public Works was involved in the early discussions of its asset management, but the funding for the project was for Water Services.

Councilmember Clark asked what was meant when a project was underway or under assessment.

Mr. Johnson said an early assessment was being done to determine what the needs were in the Water Services Department. The contractor would be preparing a scope of work for an RFP for the asset management system.

Councilmember Clark asked if it was considered an emergency system.

Mr. Johnson said the department needed the system because it was unable to enter all its assets into the current system and was unable to track work orders and was lacking analytics to manage the assets.

Councilmember Clark asked how the department was functioning now without the new system.

Mr. Johnson said staff spent a great deal of time manually looking at the equipment, tracking work orders and making sure the equipment was being managed properly. It was not acceptable to wait until the asset broke to have it fixed because it wasted time and money and impacted citizens.

Councilmember Aldama asked how old the work order system was that was being used.

Mr. Johnson said the Hanson 7.0 version was over 10 years old.

Mr. Johnson said the West Area Water Reclamation Facility plant treated over 2 billion gallons of water annually. The City did not own enough SROG treatment capacity to send all of the capacity to SROG and if it did, it would increase the O&M costs by about $3 million per year.

Mayor Weiers asked Mr. Johnson to provide the listening public the actual names instead of the acronyms.

Mr. Johnson said SROG was the Sub-Regional Operating Group, which was Phoenix's 91st Wastewater Treatment Plant and Glendale was part owner in the facility. Glendale would not benefit from the effluent recharge credits if the City did not send all of its effluent to SROG and would not be able to provide effluent to Camelback Ranch or any other future development needing effluent water. Recharge credits covered water shortages, emergencies and future economic development. The project provided for the replacement of equipment and outdated systems with systems that were more reliable and had a lower operation cost, which would save the City about $50,000 a year. The project could come offline and the flow could be sent to SROG, but several of the components had reached the end of their life and needed to be maintained.

Councilmember Aldama asked what the life expectancy was of the facility.

Mr. Johnson said the life expectancy of most of the plant facilities was 50 years, but repairs and maintenance had to be done throughout the life cycle of the facility.

Councilmember Aldama said it sounded like the facility was on the brink of failure and asked how close to failure it was.

Mr. Johnson said the plant was subject to failure at any time and said the front end of the plant was in dire need of repair.

Councilmember Aldama asked for a definition of the depth of corrosion that would cause a system failure.

Ronald Serio, Deputy for Plant Facilities, said certain aspects of the plant had a shorter life cycle. There were built-in redundancies so that even though one piece might fail, another could take its place but they still needed to fix the piece that failed. He said they were having operational-type problems which affected the plant's ability to treat the water. If equipment was not repaired regularly and it failed, it had to be replaced on an emergency basis, which was very expensive. The plants were not as redundant as they would like them to be.

Councilmember Aldama asked if anyone had provided a deadline to finish the projects.

Mr. Serio said an engineering firm had been hired to complete a condition assessment of the equipment. After a scoring process, the engineers provided a timeline of when each piece of equipment should be replaced. He said they were not doing anything that was unsafe or putting staff in danger.

Councilmember Aldama said that did not satisfy his question.

Mr. Johnson said if staff did not move on the projects, it could become a health and safety issue.

Councilmember Aldama asked how far away were the plants from failure.

Mr. Johnson said the advantage they had now was that if a plant went down, they could ship that flow to the 91st Avenue Wastewater Treatment Plant, which would buy time to work on a correction. He wanted everyone watching to know there was time to fix that plant. Emergency work was costly and disruptive to the operation.

Councilmember Aldama understood the preventative measures, but the Council needed a timeline.

Councilmember Clark went over the categories of critical projects in the documents provided to Council and asked what projects were the most critical and what projects could be phased in over the next 5 years. Decisions on water rates were based upon projects that were critical and the projects listed could not all be critical. That had been part of her difficulty in looking at the projects.

Mr. Phelps understood Council's concern, but said about 10% over the overall infrastructure needed replacement.

Councilmember Clark understood that but said some of the projects were more critical than others and that was the type of information the Council needed to make an informed decision. She said over the next 5 years, the Water and Sewer departments were asking for a 30% rate increase and Sanitation was asking for almost a 50% rate increase over the same period of time. She asked what the rate increase would be if Council approved the top 10 projects. Citizens might be having rate shock due to the tremendous proposed increases and she asked if there was any way to reduce the initial impact to citizens.

Mayor Weiers said it was a 6-year project and asked how many years it would take to complete all the projects.

Mr. Johnson said the cashflow and the projects would be done within the 6-year period.

Mayor Weiers asked if other projects would be added to the list during that time.

Mr. Johnson said that was correct. The West Area project had the cashflow to get through 2023 and the program had been behind schedule for many years. There had been no rate increases since 2010 but there had been an inflation increase of up to 13% during that same period. He appreciated the feedback from the Council and would evaluate that for the next presentation in September.

Mr. Phelps said the purpose of today's presentation was to give Council a higher degree of understanding of the proposed projects. Another workshop was scheduled in September and staff would provide options regarding the projects and how they might impact the rates. He said staff understood Council's concerns about the 30% rate increase but there hadn't been a rate increase for 7 years and it would be another 6 years to fully implement the rate increase, making it about 13 years since a full rate increase. After the public meetings, staff could start designing a rate approach that met the needs of the Council.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked where the 6-year timeline came from.

Ms. Rios said they had included 6 years for this particular analysis because they wanted to include FY17 projects that were underway which were carrying over into FY18. She said out of the $198 million CIP, about $55 million were under contracts that had been approved by Council. There was available fund balance and some money from current rates, to fund the $55 million. She said the most critical projects had already been identified and were under contract.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if the consultant had amortized these over a 10-year CIP.

Ms. Rios said the rate consultant took the City's 10-year plan and looked at the cash that would be needed. Staff then looked at how it would fund the project and how much would have to come from bonds. All of those figures were put into a 10-year model of the rates. Staff would come back to Council after getting the Council's comments and public feedback, with other options that might be available.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if there was more than $55 million in bonding capacity.

Ms. Rios said that was a complicated question because every time funds were borrowed, there needed to be sufficient rates to pay the bonds back. There was not a statutory capacity issue, but it was balancing available cash and other funding sources and not paying more interest than necessary. She said they looked at capital needs first and then figured out the best way to fund the projects.

Councilmember Clark asked if staff would try and work within the parameters if the Council authorized a 5% rate increase.

Ms. Rios said if parameters were set, staff would see what projects they could afford to do with that type of rate increase. That would create some risk for the utility as projects might not be completed.

Councilmember Clark said it wasn't that the projects would never get done, it was just that they might not get done within the first 5 years.

Ms. Rios explained the lower rate increase in the first years, could lead to a higher rate increase in the out years.

Councilmember Turner said the work might not get done until after a failure occurred. Water was a public health issue and if they were driving that based on rate tolerance instead of the risk of failure, the failure rate would likely be much higher.

Mr. Johnson said that was correct. The program kept the department moving forward and if failure did occur, they could have the discussion at that time. It could be more expensive and inconvenient in the future. There were unforecasted failures all the time and they were used to dealing with that. It was important to get back in control of the program.

Councilmember Turner did not want to risk the public health of the community because of the rates.

Councilmember Aldama said the rate increase that was set was not going to go away and the Council needed to sit back and decide what the rate increase was going to be. He would like to see more of the department's needs and not wants.

Ms. Rios said that was why the rate modeling was done over a 10 year period in anticipation of what might happen in the future. Staff recommended that Council adopt no more than 2 years of rates at the beginning and an additional year would continue to be added, so adjustments could be made during that first 5 years, if needed.

Councilmember Aldama asked if the enterprise funds could be subsidized with taxpayer dollars.

Ms. Rios said the nature of an enterprise fund was that it should be self-supporting. There was no statutory requirement that she was aware of.

Councilmember Aldama said the Council needed to have that conversation.

Mr. Phelps didn't mean to cut off a Councilmember, but there were 38 projects in the presentation and there was no need to get into such a level of detail regarding rates. Staff would come back with a variety of proposals at the next workshop.

Mr. Johnson said the fire hydrant replacement program was an ongoing project to repair and replace hydrants and valves every year. The Cholla Water Treatment Plant was built in 1978 and the project included plant process, electrical and booster station pump improvements. When the pumps were replaced, there would be redundancy so the plant could continue operation.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked what the admin building improvements were and how much of the $31 million was for the improvements.

Mr. Serio said the admin building improvements were about $2 million, which included roof repair, air conditioning replacement and asbestos removal.

Mr. Johnson said Pyramid Peak Water Treatment Plant provided water to northern and central Glendale. The costs associated with the process improvements were shared with the City of Peoria, which had a 23% share in costs. Old and obsolete water support systems would be replaced, backwash systems would be improved and a redundant service water system would be installed for the plant.

Councilmember Turner asked if the City of Peoria carried their cost of operation and maintenance for the plant.

Mr. Johnson said 23% of all shared costs, including operation and maintenance, personnel, supplies and chemicals was paid by the City of Peoria. He said the switchgear also needed to be replaced at the plant. The plant could not be turned off because there was no redundant supply of water to make up for the water that was needed for northern Glendale.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked what happened in the event of a shutdown.

Mr. Johnson said there was 20 million gallons of storage and that gave about 24 to 36 hours of storage in case of an emergency. Peoria had assisted in the case of a shut down.

Mr. Johnson said Thunderbird Reservoir facility was designed to meet fire protection for the citizens for the north and central parts of the City. Two mixers and electrical upgrades would be added at the location. The zone 3 water supply improvements were at the Hillcrest Booster Station. The facility was constructed in 1992 and went out of service shortly thereafter because it was not needed after water zones were changed and Pyramid Peak was put in. The station would serve as a redundant supply for Pyramid Peak in case of emergency.

Mr. Johnson said there was recharge capability at the agua recharge facility and at the New River Agua Fria Underground Storage Project, which was owned by SRP. Glendale was part owner in that storage project and owned the agua recharge facility. He said capabilities were reduced at ARF, so the City's available recharge capacity had been shortened in those basins. They were working on obtaining a new location and the project would finalize the assessment for that location. It was a reliability project because they needed the recharge to continue to take the flow so they could build their accounts and use the recharge credits for future pumping.

Mr. Johnson said the City had a 99-year lease with the White Mountain Apache Tribe for over 2,000 acre feet of water per year which helped supplement the assured water supply. It would have to be paid over time from the CIP. Mr. Johnson said Pyramid Peak expansion was 100% funded by the City of Peoria. The project benefited Glendale because it would have a larger amount of water coming into the plant and the new systems that were installed. Upon completion of the plant, Peoria would pick up 44% of all the costs at Pyramid Peak.

Mr. Johnson said the 99th Avenue Interceptor was the main line at 99th Avenue that was under control of SROG. It was Glendale's responsibility to upgrade the 99th Avenue interceptor as a 91st Avenue Wastewater Treatment Plant project. The Arrowhead Sewer Lines was a main trunk line that fed the wastewater to the Arrowhead Water Reclamation Facility. The lines were about 30 years old and the pipes needed to be repaired to avoid any stoppages.

Mr. Johnson said the sewer line replacement project was a citywide project that was ongoing. The next project was citywide meter vault improvements. There were safety issues as well as structural problems so these had been replaced. Mr. Johnson said the 91st Avenue construction was the same as the 99th Avenue Interceptor. The City was a 6% owner so it had to pay a 6% share of the cost for any associated project.

Mr. Johnson said the Oasis Water Treatment Plant was 10 years old and the chlorine generators had a 10-year life and were breaking down and needed to be replaced. The groundwater treatment plant had a filtering system which was not filtering like it should be. An assessment needed to be done to determine how to correct the situation.

Mr. Johnson said the lift station reconditioning program was for an assessment to make sure the lift stations continued to operate effectively. If lift stations broke, sewage started backing up and it was important to avoid that situation. The manhole rehabilitation program continued on an annual basis. The project prevented collapsing manholes and sewer backups.

Mr. Johnson said the 67th Avenue Waterline Improvement was built in 1987. Staff was concerned about it because it was the only pipe that served Jomax to Union Hills. A condition assessment needed to be completed. The distribution system improvements included pressure reducing stations, flow meters and electronic control systems, which were used to control the flow of water throughout the City. The citywide well rehab project consisted of 9 wells and they were key to redundant flow. He said staff was looking at opportunities for additional well sites to assist with redundant flow in case of drought or shortage.

Mr. Johnson said sewer vector trucks projects worked at cleaning the lines for the City. Both were approximately 12 years old and beyond their useful life. The costs to maintain them were very high and they needed to be replaced. He would like to start the procurement for the first one next year.

Mr. Johnson said wastewater collection improvements was the same thing as the distribution system improvements. He said air relief valves, water control systems and pieces of the force mains had to be replaced.

Councilmember Turner asked if the sewer vector trucks were used on a daily basis.

Mr. Johnson said the trucks were out on the street every day keeping the lines clean.

Mr. Johnson said water line replacement was another important project for the City. There were 7 miles of pipe that were, on average, over 35 years old that needed to be replaced. The laboratory equipment at the water quality lab at Pyramid Peak was in need of repair and replacement. The storage and recovery wells were going to have to be replaced in the next few years.

Mr. Johnson said the integrated master plan was critical to the City for developing and evaluating capacity for future use. The water master plan was 14 years old and the wastewater master plan was 10 years old. He would like to include reclaimed water and storm water in the next integrated master plan, which would help in future planning.

Mr. Johnson said the vehicle replacement was recently moved into the CIP and the amount listed was the amount per year to be spent to replace the vehicles. The water system security was part of the City's critical infrastructure. The system was monitored 24 hours a day and the systems did wear out because it was continually working. The program would help identify additional areas of needed security.

Mr. Johnson said the water bank was an accrual of long-term storage credits. There were three years of water stored underground, which was very important to the City. He explained the effluent and CAP water went underground into storage. Water Services worked with Engineering and land development on any projects that included water line extension and sewer line extension and the funds were used for the City to pay its portion of having a developer do the work on the projects.

Mr. Johnson said the SCADA system needed to be reviewed by a professional to see how well it was doing. It was a key component for the system, which operated 24 hours a day. All municipal utilities used the same type of system. Mr. Johnson said the last item was sewers for areas on septic systems, which set aside funds for residents with septic systems who wanted to tie into the main line.

Councilmember Turner said anyone watching the presentation could download the slide show that was presented from the City's website. It would be posted at Water Services and was also part of the agenda for today's meeting.

Mr. Johnson said the white paper would also be posted on the website.

Councilmember Turner said residents could also contact their Councilmember to obtain the documents.

Mr. Friedline said the solid waste collection enterprise main focus was on equipment replacement which included side loaders, sweepers and pickup trucks. The goal was to get the side load vehicles on a 6- or 7-year cycle for replacement so equipment did not break down, there weren't any hydraulic leaks on the streets and consistent and reliable service was provided to residents. He said the expenditure for side loaders was about $11 million over the 10-year period. Staff was working toward an 8-year cycle for the rear loaders and tractors and expenditures over the 10-year period were about $5.7 million.

Councilmember Tolmachoff asked what the approximate cost per household was for bulk trash collection.

Mr. Friedline said it was about $3.30 out of the $16.30 paid.

Mr. Friedline said pickup trucks were used for crew leaders, foreman and mechanics and those vehicles should be on a 10-year cycle. If the maintenance costs were very low on a particular vehicle, the vehicle would be kept for a longer period of time. Approximately $200,000 had been allocated over 10 years for an office space study to accommodate an office and assembly area for the drivers. Mr. Friedline said solid waste information systems had about $100,000 for the project. He said there was a need to improve technology regarding routing software systems for bulk trash and residential routes.

Councilmember Turner asked if the vehicles had any type of residual value once they had reached the end of their life span and asked how the department recovered that residual value.

Mr. Friedline said the vehicles did have a residual value and the vehicles were usually auctioned off. If they were able to get on a more efficient life cycle program with the vehicles, the extra value received could be put back into the vehicle replacement enterprise fund for solid waste.

Councilmember Turner asked if they could recover some of the value of the vehicle by selling it.

Mr. Friedline said anyone purchasing the used vehicle would have to make a pretty good investment to get it running efficiently.

Mr. Friedline provided information regarding the public outreach meetings and said it was an open house format and residents could participate in the parts that interested them the most. There would be discussion regarding rate options and the types of services that were provided.

Councilmember Tolmachoff encouraged the public to attend the forums.

Councilmember Turner said the design of the meetings was personal and the public could speak directly with staff to get questions answered.

Mr. Friedline said the format was very casual and residents could speak with staff on a one-on-one basis regarding any questions they had. He said the next steps in the process included a presentation to the Citizens Utility Advisory Commission and a September workshop presentation. He said the vote on utility rates should take place in October, with the rates effective on a date chosen by Council.

Councilmember Aldama asked where the public meeting would be held at City Hall.

Mr. Friedline said the meeting would be held in the Employee Lounge.

Councilmember Aldama asked if the meeting could be moved to the Council Chambers if necessary.

Mr. Friedline said staff would accommodate all the public who attended the meeting.

CITY MANAGER’S REPORT

This report allows the City Manager to update the City Council. The City Council may only acknowledge the contents to this report and is prohibited by state law from discussing or acting on any of the items presented by the City Manager since they are not itemized on the Council Workshop Agenda.

Mr. Phelps said the economic forecast for Glendale was very hot and the economic development staff was seeking Council direction. He proposed setting aside one Friday a month for a series of special workshops to address larger, longer-range policy issues, such as annexation policies, infill policies, transportation investment and facility usage. He said having discussions about the issues would set a vision for the City and were crucial for capturing the current momentum.

CITY ATTORNEY'S REPORT

This report allows the City Attorney to update the City Council. The City Council may only acknowledge the contents to this report and is prohibited by state law from discussing or acting on any of the items presented by the City Attorney since they are not itemized on the Council Workshop Agenda.

Mr. Bailey had no report.

COUNCIL ITEMS OF SPECIAL INTEREST

Councilmembers may indicate topic(s) they would like to have discussed by the Council at a future Workshop and the reason for their interest. The Council does not discuss the new topics at the Workshop where they are introduced.

Councilmember Aldama asked staff to research the current ordinances on urban camping and issues regarding loitering. He also asked for information on how neighboring cities addressed loitering.

Councilmember Clark wanted a discussion of the mission and goals of the IT department. She also wanted a review and discussion of the scope of the Planning Director's authority.

Councilmember Malnar asked for a discussion regarding the City's process for reviewing medical marijuana dispensaries and any discrepancies with state law.

MOTION AND CALL TO ENTER INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION

A motion was made by Councilmember Jamie Aldama, seconded by Vice Mayor Ian Hugh to enter into Executive Session.

I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the meeting of the Glendale City Council of Glendale, Arizona, held on the 1st day of August, 2017. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and held and that a quorum was present.